


Fires of Gold

by fangirl_outlet



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Dark!Rey, Dubious Consent, F/M, Force Dyad (Star Wars), Knights of Ren - Freeform, Light Dom/sub, Non canon age difference, Virgin Ben Solo, also liberal with the sith lore, brief scene of attempted assault, dom!rey, fresh out of jedi school ben solo, its hard to train with all this sexual tension, not great influences, palpatine is a predator, sith princess, sub!Ben
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:40:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23464831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fangirl_outlet/pseuds/fangirl_outlet
Summary: Princess Rey has lived amongst the shadows of the sith since her grandfather picked her up off the wasteland of Jakku when she was five years old. She has served at his right hand, his greatest apprentice, as he prepared to bring the Final Order out of the darkness. She has always been prepared to fufill her legacy, until her 20th birthday when her grandfather delivers her the oddest of gifts...Ben Solo is still reeling after the death of his closest friend, Tai. At 23, he’s walked away from everything and everyone he’s ever known and has fallen in with a group of guys a little too into their masks. He should go to Snoke, train and hone his ability, but his Knights have an alternative solution...Sheev Palpatine, the Eternal Emperor, has secured his pawns.
Relationships: Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 29
Kudos: 62
Collections: Reylo Hidden Gems, The Sub!Ben Collection





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> All the thanks to my writing babes on Twitter who encouraged me to write this and gave me feedback on the prologue. You’re the best bunch of ladies.

Leia took a long sip from her wine glass, perched in the doorway of their kitchen. She watched as her husband, Han, shifted their baby boy delicately in his arms and deposited him in his crib. He sighed as Leia approached with soft footsteps. 

Ben was restless. He tossed and turned in his sleep, even as his mother soothed away his dark wavy locks from his clammy forehead. He whimpered. 

“You should have let me leave him on the Falcon.”

“He wasn't supposed to _go_ on that run you and Chewie made in the first place, Han. He’s a baby,” Leia huffed and took another long sip. “You’re going to tell me he was a natural with a blaster?”

“Maybe not with a blaster, but you should have seen him steal a ship,” her husband dared to chuckle. 

There he was. A hot-shot trigger-happy scoundrel, the light of his latest score still gleaming in his eyes. It was the same Han she met all those years ago. Same smirk. But now the pride in his face wasn’t just about him or his ship. It was about the bundle of blankets they managed to get settled for the night. 

Leia wanted to slide into his arms, nuzzle her forehead into the nook between his neck and chest and just breathe in the smell of pine that always seemed to linger on this backwater smuggler. She wanted to be held and told everything was going to be fine. They were doing fine. 

But instead, she just glared at him from the other side of her son’s crib. “This isn’t funny.” 

The mirth drained from his face. “You’re damn right it's not funny, Leia.” He paced across the room and threw himself into the rocker Lando bought them three years ago when Ben was born. “That six-hour flight - half of which was spent on a not too smooth hyperspace route might I add -- was the best sleep he’s gotten in _months_.” 

Leia pointedly looked away, draining her glass. 

“This isn’t normal Leia,” Han’s voice was exhausted. And not from his journey. “And it’s not something Luke can just fix with a wave of his hands or some deep meditation.” 

“That’s not how the Force works,” Leia grumbled. 

Ben’s whimpers burst into full-on screams. Ripples of the Force radiated off of him, shattering the small hololight in the corner. He thrashed his blankets away with tiny fists and feet, as if fending off some unseen shadow. Leia tried rocking the crib to lull him back to sleep, but Ben’s cries only got louder, more agonized. 

The princess broke, and she snatched her troubled boy up into her arms. 

“Shhh. My baby. Shhh, mommy’s got you,” Leia whispered. Ben was ice cold against her, even as he calmed immediately at her touch. “Mommy won’t let anything hurt you.” 

Han sighed. They locked eyes from across the room and the moment slowed around them. The soft sounds of bustling Chandrila faded, so the only sound in the nursery was Ben’s soft coos in his mother’s arms. Without another word, he held out his arms, and Leia all but ran across the room to fold herself into his lap. 

He rocked them -- Leia and Ben, safe there all tucked together -- for a few moments in the quiet, before he pressed his lips to his wife’s forehead. 

“Everything is going to be fine,” he murmured against her skin, his hand brushing back Ben’s hair. “We’re going to be fine.” 

*********** 

Palpatine breathed deeply, enjoying the sting of cool air circulating in his lungs, as he stepped away from the altar. He let his eyes linger on the blue flames still licking the edges of the cauldron. A slow smile slithered across his face. 

He considered his hands, once again wrinkle-free, and felt the strength within the old bones as he curled them inwards. 

“So the dathomirian was telling the truth,” he spoke softly, only for himself. “Her old magiks worked. How truly surprising.” 

This body of his never felt quite right. Too tight. Fragile. His skin itched with every movement since he jettisoned his spirit across the cosmos into this empty, vapid shell. The Sith never had an answer for the cost of transferring one’s life essence, but there were secrets not even the Sith of Old knew.

Not until Darth Sidious and his genius foresight to marry the ways of darkness between the force users and the enchanters. 

“Thank you, my boy,” he sent through the Force, delighted in the delicious ripple of cold fear that came answering back. 

He closed his eyes, relishing in the darkness he sensed wrapping around that accursed family. The Princess of Alderaan wracked with crippling self-doubt. The smuggler pinned under his own frustrations. The _jedi_ isolated in his swelling confidence.

The Skywalkers had stripped everything from him. But now the key to his eternal life laid helpless in their arms. 

A burst of heat seared spontaneously through the Force, ripping him out of his reverie. It couldn’t have lasted more than a moment -- a single heartbeat -- but Palpatine felt it reverberate in his bones. 

_There is another._

His guards, painted in gleaming red, snapped to attention as a page burst through the doors unannounced. Their plasma blades hissed through the air. The page tripped as he fumbled to stop, arms flailing under his dark robes, and landing prostrate before his Eternal Emperor. 

Palpatine waved his guards away with a lazy flick of his wrist. “Speak.”

“Your most regal majesty,” the fool’s voice was trembling. “The one that escaped. The acolyte. We found him. Well, located him to be precise.”

“Is he dead? Or is there a useful point to this news?” 

“Yes, yes, my lord,” the pitiful creature _bowed_ before he resumed. “It appears he had a child. Just recently. A girl. He’s willing to sell her to us, to clear his debt. He just requests that he and his woman are free to flee.” 

_Ah. A girl._

Palpatine considered for a moment. Attachment. Grief. Bitterness. With these, he could sharpen the most lethal of knives. 

"We shall wait."

"Sir?"

“In five years' time, I want you to take him up on his offer. Find the girl and bring her to me,” Palpatine said. “Then...kill him and the mother.” 

The Emperor leaned back against the cool obsidian of his throne as his page scrambled out of the hall, considering the latest revelation. 

_A girl. Ben._

_This changed everything._

He smiled in the dark, golden eyes gleaming.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More than ten thousand souls were in that cathedral, but the moment her eyes locked with this mystery of a man, the rest could have all spontaneously combusted from the sheer intensity of it. And Rey wouldn’t notice her empire falling like a rain of flames around her. Not in the slightest. 
> 
> “My boy,” The Eternal Emperor reached out his arms in welcome. “Ben Solo, the Last Skywalker, come to fulfill his grandfather’s legacy at last.”

The long-buried citadel of Exegol was abuzz for the first time since the Eternal Emperor had arisen in his new palace. 

Creatures scurried along in the shadows. Courtiers with their fine clothes and dark hoods gossiped as they descended deep down into the palace’s winding halls, rushing to stake their claim in the Great Cathedral. Alyoclates threw themselves into their work, scrubbing the walls and lighting the torches and preparing the unused chambers. Even the vagabond and scoundrels meandered the upper levels of the Sith’s last remaining holdout -- feigning busywork to appear useful. 

Except the Emperor himself. 

Palpatine studied his appearance in the mirror. The shallow imitation of the Senator of Naboo, the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic stared back at him. This face was older than it had ever been, but he supposed it was better to be marred with deep set wrinkles than the scars. He adjusted the collar at his neck, a stiff thing that flared out just under his chin, and puffed out the dark violet sleeves of his robes. A long cloak - black as night - hung down from his shoulders and sprawled out across the stone floor. 

He crossed over into the lounge of his quarters where a servant girl was prodding the hearth in the center of the room. She bowed as he strode past her, settling himself at a small table to consider his game of Shah-tezh. Palpatine could feel her eyes on him as he considered the demesne, its pieces scattered across the board and frozen in this drawn out game. 

“I’ve been studying the stars, my lord,” she spoke with a surety not even his most senior admirals had in his presence. 

Palpatine finally turned to the girl. She was a small, unassuming thing, with bright red eyes and stark blue skin. It wasn’t the first time a Chiss had found itself in his service -- they were a useful people, these natives of the Unknown Regions. 

Sabosen’udo’inokini. Now  _ Silya.  _ Her mother was a proud daughter of two ruling houses, and yet swore herself to the Sith. Founded the fledgling settlement in the catacombs of Exegol. Royalty in her own right, now loyal to the one true power in the galaxy. 

“And?” 

Silya’s eyes fell to the demesne, “They favor us, my lord. The time is near.” 

Returning his attention to the board, Palpatine pressed his fingertips together and raised them to his chin. He had always had a knack for shah-tezh -- the strategy a thrill -- ever since his master first taught him the names of each pawn. He had outpaced Plagueis’ skill within a few games, but chose never to give into the temptation of actually winning a match against the old Sith Lord. But, in truth, Palpatine was his own best competition. 

The black figurines on his side of the table were pressed close together, a uniform defensive front around the Imperator, with his knight front and center. Across the board, all nine white pawns were scattered, exposed, barely holding their defensive line together. 

“Are you prepared to do your duty child?” He didn’t deign to look at her, but he could hear the rustle of her skirts as she knelt in fealty. 

“She means nothing to me,” came her vow. “I know where my loyalties lie. At the feet of the Sith Throne. To the might of Unknown Regions.”

“Good.” 

Palpatine slid the white knight closer to his own. 

*************** 

Ben’s head pounded even in the pitch black darkness of his quarters. Wincing, he slowly pushed himself onto his elbow and pressed the heel of his palm to his eye. His legs were sweltering under the rough blanket they were tangled in, but the ship’s cool recycled air soothed the feverish skin of his bare chest. 

He didn't exactly  _ remember _ falling asleep in his own bed, but then again, he didn’t exactly remember the entire night either. 

In a moment of panic, he scrambled to sit upright in bed, throwing the blanket off and exhaling deeply when, yes, his underwear was still on. His relief was rewarded with a fresh jack hammering behind his left eye. 

This was Kuruk’s fault. He was typically the quietest one of the knights, as far as Ben could tell, but he wasn’t shy about pushing drinks around the crew. Especially after he had a few knockback nectars himself. 

At one point, Kuruk even enlisted Trudgen and Vicrul to hold Ben's arms down while he forced Ben to chug bottom shelf Corellian Whiskey straight from the bottle. 

Ben vaguely remembered getting tossed out of the cantina not too long afterward. 

He flopped back on his pillows, hissing as the jack hammering flared up again and traveled along the curve of his skull. But the pain, the silence, the dark gave him a much needed sense of isolation. 

It had only been a few months since...everything had happened on that moon. With Val. And Tai. And Ren. 

The inky black feeling that coursed through his veins that night and turned his saber crimson, had washed away in the morning light...but he still woke up on a cot, far away from Chadrilla, on a ship that wasn’t the Grimaatash. 

He knew it wouldn’t be just enough to stick a lightsaber in someone’s chest. That might have earned him the title of Ren, but it was something else to earn the right to lead. 

Ben could sense the undercurrent of distrust and resentment when he first ordered the knights onto their ship. He felt their eyes, never exposed like his without their masks, on him as he stalked down to the cockpit for the first time to help Kuruk pilot. He couldn’t even recall having a single, two-way conversation with any of them for the first two months that he was on this stupid ship.

There was something Han used to tell him, on those rare moments that he was able to steal away from Luke’s Jedi temple and meet up with his father and Chewie on some backwater hit they were running: a distrustful crew is the quickest way to getting a gut full of blaster fire. 

It wasn’t advice Ben ever thought he’d be able to find himself actually applying to his life. Not when that life was apparently going to be a sea of endless white robes and books and hours of quiet meditation as he chased the voices out his head. 

But there he was, leather-clad and running around with a bunch of masked men, trying to make sure he would actually  _ live _ to see his 24th lifeday. So two months ago, he dropped a sack of the credits he got from selling the temple ship for scraps on their main table in the den and suggested they take a few days off to hit up the pub he first met them all at. His life had been a whirlwind of scams, swiping ancient artifacts, and parades of scantily clad women of all species ever since. 

_ You’re forgetting something.  _

Ben stopped breathing. 

_ You need to finish your training my boy. You need to fulfil your legacy.  _

Three months. Three  _ blessedly  _ quiet months. But it had found him. The Master. 

Ben never knew who this voice was. It was different from the whispers his grandfather would sometimes send his way. It was different even from his friend Snoke. But it was in his head longer than any other. Maybe it was his own. Maybe it was something else. But it always made his skin break out in goosebumps and left him feeling drained and sluggish. 

_ Come to me. Surrender to it.  _

With the tiny shake of his pounding head, Ben chased the whisper away. He took one, two shuddering breaths in the dark that was now suffocating him and launched himself off his cot. Drunk Ben took the liberty of leaving his shirt and jacket neatly folded at the edge of his nightstand, and he tugged the tight black sweater over his head as he stepped into the corridor. 

The rest of his shipmates were well awake by the time Ben slid into the kitchette’s booth with a groan. Kuruk and Ushar’s voices were echoing down the corridor from the cockpit. Trudgen was apparently still entertaining his guests -- if the noises coming from his fresher could count as entertainment and not torture. It was hard for Ben to tell sometimes. 

Across the small common space, Vicrul was busying himself at the thermapad with some sort of smoked meat. Two twi’leks Ben vaguely remembered from the night before hung on either side of this morning’s chef, their long legs stretching out from the shortest nightdresses Ben had ever seen. They were just impractical really.

One of the girls looked over at him, with her lower lip tucked between her teeth and a look in her eye he did  _ not _ have the energy to decipher, so Ben buried his flaming cheeks in his hands. 

A cup of calf slid across the table and bumped against his forearms. 

“Morning there  _ Kylo _ ,” Ap’lek smirked down at him as he slid in across from Ben. Like the rest of the knights, the long, lean blonde stopped wearing his mask a couple of weeks ago, making it  _ much _ easier to tell when he was being a dick. 

“Didn’t realize we were coming up with new nicknames today Aps,” Ben deadpanned as he took a sip of the strong caf. Two pumps of sarlacc cream. Exactly as he liked it. 

Vicrul burst out laughing, turning away from his finished dish in the kitchenette. “Do you really not remember?” He thrust his broad body away from his lady friends, and hoisted it onto the small table and thrust out his chest. “Tis’ I -- Kylo Ren, Master of the Knights of Ren --” he waved his hands in a dramatic bow. “And I challenge any of ye scrawny men to a battle of the fists.” 

Ben cringed, both from the faded memory and eerily accurate impression. 

“What can you expect?” Ap’lek chuckled. “Kid spent 13 years on a monk farm. Think they were out there knocking back pints?” 

“Did I at least win any of these fights?” 

“Battle of fists,” Vicrul corrected as he climbed down from the table. “Don’t worry. Kylo kicked ass. He just didn’t get any.” 

Ben groaned into his cup of caf as Vicrul took his food and his girls back to his quarters, his imitation of  _ Kylo Ren  _ echoing down the hall. 

“Chin up, boy,” Ap’lek told him. “You couldn’t keep going by  _ Ben Solo  _ forever.”

The silence hung between them. The older knight was quiet, steady, scanning Ben’s face for any tick of mourning for his old life. But Ben had years of training with probing looks. 

“So,” Ben started. “I was thinking -- when Trudgen and Vicrul are done with their, um, morning activities, we could head out towards Dantooine. I know there’s some really old settlements out there and it's relatively deserted still so it should be an easy score.”

“Not that these past few weeks haven’t been fun and all, but have you checked in with that Snoke fellow that set you up with Ren?”

“Snoke?” Ben blinked. “No why? I’m not a Jedi anymore. I don’t have any master.”

Ap’lek held up his hands in defeat, but there was still some sort of heaviness to his gaze. “Well I’ll tell you what,  _ Kylo _ . Dantooine sounds great. But if you’re looking to dig up some old dirt with Cardo, I know a guy who has more than he knows what to do with. Rare things too.”

“And he’ll be willing to just part with them? How generous. How unlike your friends.” 

“Hey!” Ap’lek pointed a finger at Ben. “You haven’t met all my friends.”

“We  _ are _ all your friends.” Ben shot back. He finished his caf and turned to business. “So. Who is this associate we’re robbing?” 

Ap’lek grinned. “He’s gonna like you.” 

******************** 

Rey bit back a groan as today’s over eager captain droned on, clearly intent on using up the entire 45 minutes of her allotted presentation time. 

“And see, if we use just a few of our resources in this quadrant it could give us ground to set up a staging area much closer to the populated outer rim,” the general, a middle-aged woman starting to grey, said. 

She must’ve been born and bred on Exegol, Rey realized, waiting her entire life for this mere half hour to present the council. 

_ Pity _ . 

Rey sat at the head of the war table, a spot that guaranteed her space in this room daily for military briefings and unfortunately came with the responsibility of making appearances at drabble like this. On her 20th birthday. When she could be using her precious time inspecting the fleet. 

But one glimpse of the smug look on Grand Admiral Delmon Vash’s face and the reminder of her purpose here hit her with the ferocity of the thunderclaps in the skies far, far above. 

He sat on her right, not even a head taller than her, but took up at least a third of the corner they shared with his behemoth elbows. Like every other military officer on this damned council, his light grey uniform was pristine, every stitch a sign of rank earned in the old days. Their badges and awards were literally pinned to their chests -- relics from wars they all survived in together. 

Meanwhile, Rey’s black jumpsuit -- ornate as the embroidery on the stiff collar and her epaulets was -- was plain. She bore no insignia of the Imperial era on her body. They eyed the bejeweled circlet that rested on her forehead, the only reminder of her royal blood that she deigned to wear, with skepticism and heavily veiled mirth. 

“An interesting proposal. What say you, Princess?” Admiral Vash asked, the upwards tick at the edge of his lips giving the intention of his question away. 

A slick flame uncoiled in her chest, searing as it coursed through her. Every fiber in her body itched to slap the smirk right off Vash’s insufferable face, hard enough with her stacked rings to draw a trickle of blood. She would stand, tall and proud, above his doubled-over body relishing in his whimpers. 

But instead, she funneled every image of his pain, of her fury into the smile she flitted across her face, pretty as poison. 

“I think it's a horrific plan that will undo over twenty years of preparation,” her voice was cool as ice in the room. Twenty pairs of eyes, and at least one dropped jaw, turned her way. “And it will cost every life on Exegol.” 

Only Vash seemed unperturbed. His smirk stayed on his face for only the barest breath of a moment, before he slid it into a mask of utter offense. “All due respect, your highness, but are you doubting the durability of the Eternal forces? Dare I say that sounds a tad...cowardly.”

“More cowardly than smuggling yourself onto a crowded livestock transport and fleeing into the unknown regions like a  _ vagabond _ instead of fighting to defend the Empire?” Rey’s eyes narrowed a millimeter as she watched Vash’s adam’s apple bob. 

Taking advantage of his stunned silence, Rey pressed on, turning her attention back to the illuminated quadrant maps at the forefront of the room. She gestured to the southernmost area, lighted in red, that was the proposed new territory. 

“That is far, far to close to Takodana,” she pointed directly to the unmarked speck on the captain’s map. “And, yes, it may be a smuggler’s point, but if we have our spies there you can bet the Republic does too.”

“Additionally,” Rey cut across Vash’s attempts to protest. “We already have the First Order building up their resources in the North. They’re our first line of offense, pulling the Republic’s attention and splintering their hold on the Core Worlds. If suddenly there’s a flurry of activity  _ also  _ from the Uknowns -- the Republic will get suspicious. If they get suspicious they will send their warships, they will send their Jedi, they will rain fire down upon us.” 

“My deepest apologies, mi lady,” the captain’s voice was trembling as she bowed deeply. “I--I hadn’t considered. I was ju--just looking a the terrain.”

Rey held up a held and stopped the poor officer from babbling any further. “While the timing of this strategy is most inopportune, the scouting is sound. We shall archive your proposal, given you reformat it to suit our needs as a base once we secure the outer rim.”

“We didn’t vote on that,” Vash injected. 

_ Ah. A dare.  _

Rey pointedly looked at each general sitting at the conference directly in their eyes, “Any objections?” No one moved. “None? Perfect. This meeting is adjourned.” 

Vash pressed close to Rey as she pulled herself up from her seat. Most of the generals had already made a beeline for the exit, but a few of the more senior members were lagging behind. The admiral was a stout, red faced man with a thick burly mustache that went out of fashion long before the Empire fell. 

“I was there when the contingency plan went into effect. You weren’t even a possibility at that point,” he voice was low, pointed, but loud enough the rest of his former imperial officers could hear. “You could not fathom the Empire’s might.” 

“And yet, in its most desperate hour, you didn’t fight. You ran,” Rey didn’t fidget, or lean back even as the smell of his morning deathstick wafted up to her. “You ran until you found remnants of the Empire that would take you in because of the bits of metal on your chest.”

“You are holding onto power here by the barest of threads,  _ Princess,”  _ he snarled. 

Rey’s body went ice cold. Inside her something stirred like the warning winds of a blizzard. She imagined it slithering out from her, up Admiral Vash’s torso, chest, neck. His eyes bulged as he gasped for air. 

It was only for a minute. A long minute. But when Rey released her hold on the admiral, he dropped to his knees before her. 

She didn’t kneel to his level, she didn’t even cast her eyes down at him. “You talk of power admiral? You just  _ tasted _ real power. And it doesn’t appear to agree with you.” 

***********

Rey was still buzzing when she arrived back at her quarters. Placing her circlet delicately on her nightstand, she flopped back onto her massive arched bed with a sigh. She replayed the image of Vash dropping to his knees over and over in her mind, the rush of that much control flooding her body. 

_ They will all bow to me.  _

Out of the corner of her eye, Rey caught a new addition to her decor on her onyx desk. It was a vase filled with twenty nightbloomers, petals glowing a soft white in the dark Exegol atmosphere. A gift from her grandfather, naturally. After learning of the one she kept on Jakku, he supplied her with another every single lifeday. 

She gingerly traced one of the delicate petals, reflecting on her fifteen years on this dark cold planet. It was the opposite of Jakku, where she spent five years of her life in blistering heat and blinding light. Her parents were always off, drunk, somewhere -- while she was peddling scraps to Plutt's. Until they weren’t. 

Then she was here. With a wrinkled old man gasping at how thin she was, and wrapping his bones arms around her. Instead of rags, she was dressed in the finest, richest velvets and tulle and silk gowns. Instead of scavenging, she was shown how to touch the Force, taught the ways of the Sith. Her legacy.

It was times like these where she wondered if she’d mourn her grandfather when the blade he watched her forge incinerated his lungs. 

A slam at her door pulled Rey out of her reverie. “You force-choked the  _ Grand Admiral? _ ” Her handmaiden wasted no time exclaiming. “And you chose to do that  _ three hours _ before you have to stand in front of the entire Sith Eternal congregation for your lifeday ceremony?”

“Silya!” Rey threw her arms around the blue-skinned girl. “You have known me since I was eight years old. You should know by now I purposefully try to make things difficult just for you.” 

“Hmmmph,” Silya huffed as she pulled away from Rey’s embrace and made her way to the package hanging off the wardrobe door. “You better tell me the story while I get you ready. I need to know how long to test our foods for poison.”

Rey gasped when her maid pulled out the dress she was supposed to wear tonight. She normally made her formal appearances in black, or a very dark grey, occasionally the splash of burgundy. Typically she’d be adorned in strong epaulets or an intricate corset. But this was, not that at all.

No the gown Silya held out for her was a strapless ballgown, with no frills or embellishments beyond the train that stretched out five extra feet. The silk it was made out of was like a golden galaxy littered with indigo nebula had been poured into the form of a dress and directly onto her body. 

And that was what she was wearing three hours later with a bejeweled, violet headdress resting on her soft curls. 

She managed to process down the Great Cathedral’s hall with her head held high so the torchlight glittered off the gemstones hanging over her forehead. In the crowd, she could make out some familiar faces -- the acolytes she occasionally trained with, the mechs that would sneak her into the shipyard to work at night, and, of course, the council. Grand Admiral had a spot right in the front, likely plotting a million ways to trip her up ash she passed by. 

But Rey managed to meet her grandfather on the Dias without spectacle. He was already seated on his throne, dressed in traditional Nabooian garb, and she took her position at his right hand. 

“I heard you attacked the admiral,” his voice drifted up to her. “Good. Good, my apprentice.” 

She dipped her head. “Thank you, master.” 

“I hope you appreciate your lifeday gift. It should be arriving right about now.”

Suddenly the double doors of the ancient ceremonial room burst open with a slam that reverberated through the walls. In stormed six leather clad men, with large crude plasma weapons. Each donned their own monstrosity of a mask. Except for the last one -- wild dark hair, broad shoulders, with a face full of sharp angles and the softest lips Rey had ever seen. 

Two of the men threw their unmasked companion to the floor, forcing him to his knees before the Sith throne. 

“A gift, Lord Sidious,” one bowed. “From the Knights of Ren.” 

More than ten thousand souls were in that cathedral, but the moment her eyes locked with this mystery of a man the rest could have all spontaneously combusted from the sheer intensity of it. And Rey wouldn’t notice her empire falling like a rain of flames around her. Not in the slightest. 

“My boy,” The Eternal Emperor reached out his arms in welcome. “Ben Solo, the Last Skywalker, come to fulfill his grandfather’s legacy at last.”

Rey watched at the boy’s soft features morphed like the light in a kaleidoscope. First, his brown eyes widened and his large frame folded in on itself. His breath caught in his chest. And Rey felt his palpable fear -- icy and numb -- strike through her as if it was her own. But it burned away a moment later -- and she saw that reflected in his furrowed brows, the roll of his jaw. 

“I’m going to kill you,” the boy growled. 


	3. Chapter 3

In hindsight, the massive maze of crimson space ooze Ben had to navigate through should have been the first clue that things with Ap’lek’s “friend” weren’t going to go well. 

He touched down on the planet's barren surface and plopped back in the pilot’s seat with a small sigh. They made it. And in one piece. But where had they made it to exactly? 

“Hey, have you ever been here with Aps?” Ben asked Kuruk, but his rather useless copilot had already ducked out of the cockpit. “Helpful.” 

He peered out of the main viewport but there was nothing to see. Just a barren, cracked wasteland stretching out in all directions, lit up sporadically by patches of chaotic lighting. The only thing even resembling a structure was the massive pyramid-looking hunk of rock floating a couple dozen feet off the surface. 

But the Force. The Force was anything but barren. It was cold and stormy around him, reverberating in the planet's crust. Two things were very, very clear: Exegol was no ordinary planet. And Aps’ friend was no ordinary collector. 

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Ben muttered. 

And that feeling only grew when the Knights stopped him from donning his new mask with the rest of them. And more so when they had to pick their way through the shadowy halls and descend into what distinctively looked like a  _ sith  _ tomb. And most of all when stopped behind two massive arched doors, carved with the oldest runes he’d ever seen, and no one even let him stop to analyze them. 

But that all faded away when the doors opened to reveal a grand cathedral of dark craggled stone lit by a thousand floating lanterns, casting the hall in long shadows against their orange and yellow hue -- Ben’s entire existence zeroed down to the girl in the purple headdress and golden ballgown at the other end of the room. 

He could only see a sliver of her, most of the platform she stood on was blocked by the knights in front of him, but she sucked the air right out of his lungs. And he wanted to thank her for it. 

She was fair, with high cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes that pierced through him. The soft lighting framed her like a halo, but her delicate features wrinkled in confusion. 

Ben was so enraptured with counting the freckles stark against her skin that he didn’t notice the chill that ran like an icy current in the Force, that his knights had closed in on him, or that his saber was being yanked from his back strap until Ap’lek was slamming it against his head. 

Two of the other knights - his head was spinning too much to make out who -- grabbed him roughly, securing their grip tight under his armpits, and tossed him to his knees. 

“My boy,” Ben’s blood ran cold when he heard that crackled voice reverberate in the air rather than in his head. “Ben Solo, the Last Skywalker, come to fulfill his grandfather’s legacy at last.” 

_ The Master had found him.  _

Blinking up through the dark strains of his hair, Ben could make out gleaming golden eyes, discolored skin, and wrinkled hands. He tried to swallow down the bile that rose in his throat as the truth washed over him. He was kneeling at the feet of his worst nightmare. 

The voice he hid from his entire family. He felt it merge with Snoke’s, with his grandfather’s. It was the Master. Always. 

Palpatine. Sidious. The man with a thousand names and faces -- all them haunting his family. Ben felt a heat bloom at the back of his neck that was rapidly thawing the ice in his veins. 

“I’m going to kill you,” Ben snarled through gritted teeth. 

The Emperor’s smile widened. 

Without glancing back, he called his saber to him through the Force, yanking it out of Ap’lek’s hand, and shoved his traitorous brothers backward. He ignited his spitting fire of a lightsaber, the cracked crystal within aching under his palm. Ben focused on that pain, on the laughter that clung to him every night on Chandrila and launched himself at the Emperor. 

The Force fueled him, spurring him faster with every step. The Emperor did not move as Ben raced down the main hall and up the stairs to the raised platform. Golden eyes stared at him. Unblinking. Gleaming. Welcoming this burst of rage. Ben raised his saber high up in the air, the blood roaring in his ears, with every intent to slice through the wrinkled relic with every ounce of power he could muster. 

_ This is who I’m meant to be. Jedi slayer. Sith Slayer. A weapon.  _

But too late -- again -- Ben took notice of his surroundings. Namely, the silent beauty that struck him like lighting now moving with that same agility. She reached down, hand disappearing behind the slit in her skirt, lunging to intercept him. 

Her crimson saberstaff, stable and steady, clashed with his unstable blade, bathing the Emperor in their glow. 

The Emperor, completely unnerved by the sabers inches from his face, chuckled softly. His golden eyes flicked from Ben to the girl and back. 

Caught off guard, Ben was forced backward as the girl pushed one end of her staff back and up -- away from the Emperor. She brought the other up in a sharp slash, turning to face him with a snarl painting her features. He was caught in the ravine of her advance -- a flurry of sweeps, thrusts, strikes rained down on him. Pressing him to retreat all the ground he gained, back down the stairs and down the hall. 

The knights were at his back. If the girl didn’t finish him -- they would. 

Her assault was unrelenting and seamless. It was all Ben could do to defend against the onslaught -- his blade pressed unnaturally close against his chest. The strikes rained down from both sides, forcing him to keep his range of motion limited to blocking his body. With only a single blade against a dual-sided weapon, Ben knew he couldn’t carve out an opening. But his saber wasn’t the only weapon he had. 

Moving purely on instinct at this point, trying not to trip over his own feet, Ben stretched out his palm and thrust the Force at his attacker. Halting her advance. It was only for a moment. The girl’s eyes widened at the trick -- stunned for a heartbeat. But it was enough. Enough for Ben to give himself some space, shift his stance, and charge. 

He aimed for her one weakness -- the heart of her saber staff. Ben, one-handed, threw his saber up over his head and cut it straight down. The girl, for her part, was no fool. She deflected -- pushing one end of her staff to knock his blade to the side. But the momentum was on his side now. He drove her back towards the middle of the hall, bombarding her with crushing blows. And she met him, strike for strike, grunt for grunt, her staff swinging in a diagonal pendulum. 

But he couldn’t keep up this press forever. Soon she’d regain her footing and he’d be right back on the defensive. So he gave ground -- allowing her to force his saber down to the side -- and leaving her back, bare in the strapless gown, exposed. 

Keeping his saber down, Ben stepped in swiftly, slipping his leg through the slit in her dress and tangling it with hers. Forcing her off balance, it was too easy for him to win now, tipping her back and letting gravity take over. 

Or so he thought. 

The girl grabbed his arm as she fell, dragging him down towards her. As she hit the ground, her leg swung upwards -- kicking him in the small of the back and sending Ben tumbling head over heels until he hit the ground with a thud. 

The crowd was beginning to stir as Ben and the girl both rolled over and pushed themselves up to stand. A uniformed man with a large mustache began shouldering his way over when the girl blasted him back with a flick of her wrist. 

“Leave him,” Ben chose to assign the tingles that raced down his spine to the adrenaline coursing through his system instead of the lilt of her voice. “The Skywalker boy is mine.” 

The two circled each other, twirling their crimson sabers. Their heavy breathing was the only sound in the grand cathedral beside the low hum of her blade and the crackle of his. Despite her feral scowl and clear choice of weapon -- Ben could see the girl’s eyes were a bright hazel, not gold. She was no Sith. Yet. 

With a yell, she launched herself at him, spinning her saber to keep him from anticipating the blow. The girl pressed him with a series of rapid upper thrusts, and he growled, looking for a way to keep from being boxed in. When her staff swung up towards his right, he rolled with it. Allowing her momentum to spin him over his shoulder with his saber raised, Ben snapped his weapon out, aiming to cut the staff in half as he completed his turn. But she had anticipated, sidestepped, and intercepted his blow with a satisfied smirk. 

The girl snapped her staff in half with a smooth  _ clink _ , trapping his blade between hers. She pressed up and back against him, looking to somehow get around the massive size advantage he had on her. Grunting, Ben clasped his other hand around the hilt -- the thick patchwork of frayed metal vibrating with the intensity of their standoff -- and slid his saber to the base; his cross guards slamming against the walls of the snare she laid for him. 

They stood there, huffing into each other’s face, neither giving an inch. The girl’s eyes flicked to the crowds flanking them, to the Emperor somewhere behind Ben. He felt the wave of anxiety course through her as her saber slipped just a fraction. 

“Enough of this,” she growled, low and quiet, before slamming her mind crashing into his. 

And then it hit them like a bolt of lighting. Some sort of current sparked to life, buzzing and nearly electric between them. Stitching their very souls together. They both gasped and Ben could see the kaleidoscope of emotions shift on her face before they echoed down  _ whatever  _ was connecting them.

But then just as suddenly everything turned to ice. And the last thing Ben saw before his vision turned black was the girl’s face drained of color. 

  
  


**** 

Alone in his chambers, Palpatine studied his reflection for the second time that day. He had stripped off his finery after the Skywalker boy was carried out by the guards, dressed now only in a simple mauve robe. The sight in the mirror was one of a hollow vessel, desperately clinging to the last of its threads. His wrinkles were as deep-set as ever, skin pasty and practically translucent, and his body thin beneath his garments.

Perfect. 

It was a risk, he knew, to draw energy from the boy, from Rey for the first time in her life. Even just this small amount. But he recognized the opportunity the moment it flashed before his eyes. The fools -- even he hadn’t predicted they’d managed to trigger the bond this quickly -- but their overconfidence and abject ignorance was just too perfect of a cover. 

And it was worth it. Palpatine flexed his hands, feeling the strength of young, vibrant force energy seeping into the muscles. It had been getting harder to hide his deterioration -- struggling to merely make it to his throne tonight unassisted -- but it was far, far obvious to try anything after the destruction of the Jedi temple. 

It wouldn’t be long now though, until the time came where he would never again be reduced to a living parasite. 

“Milord,” one of his pages materialized from behind the privacy curtain that separated his living from his bedchamber. “The princess has answered your summons. She awaits you in your study.” 

Palpatine dismissed him with a lazy wave of his bony hand and continued to consider his reflection for a moment more. He had used and put away the guise Supreme Dark Lord Sidious after tonight's festivities, and already was it time to don another. 

He took a deep breath, savoring the ease of it in his chest, and turned to begin his next masquerade.

“Granddaughter!” Palpatine exclaimed as he pulled back the curtain and stepped into the main room. 

The girl, like him, had done away with her finery -- though not until after wearing the tattered dress out of the hall like a prized pelt through the throng of cultists he had amassed. Now, she was much more like the child he scrapped off the desert in Jakku -- three ridiculous buns and black arm wrappings like a cocoon from the world around her. But there was still a stamp of a childhood in a lap of privilege  _ he  _ had provided, with the ornate golden lace of her hooded cloak and the flowing black gown it hung over. And the royal circlet resting on her brow.

Despite the comfort of her casual attire, Rey was standing stiff amongst his things. She was once so open, so eager -- plopping herself down on the puffed settees, combing through the bookcases, tangling herself in the long satin curtains draped around the room -- but now stayed where she was, rocking on the balls of her feet as she waited. And her emotions, once chaotic, were now reigned in too tightly for him to sense. 

Palpatine realized all of this in a matter of seconds, and was perturbed; not out of foolish sentiment. It was simply that Rey closing him off was  _ not  _ in his grand plan. But he had prepared, of course, ways to iron out wrinkles like this. 

He intentionally kept his foot moving over the next step, sliding and catching himself with a small whimper on the railing of the staircase. 

“Grandfather!” she exclaimed and scurried over to gingerly grab his arm and steady him against her. He made sure to tremble with each additional step as they slowly made their way to settle at his small table. “Are you not feeling well? I can come back tomorrow -- let you rest tonight.” 

“No no no, my dear girl,” Palpatine gently patted her hand, clammy between his own, and motioned for her to sit across from him. “I  _ insist _ we sit for a cup of tea. It’s not every day a girl turns twenty, and it's been too long since I was able to spend quality time like this with you.”

Something flashed across her face and sparked in the force around her -- fear? guilt? anxiety? -- as she settled down and poured the hot tea for them both. It was but a flicker. But it was a start. She was beginning to crack open for him.

“What is bothering you, my dear?” 

Rey’s eyebrows shot up and the short fuse he spent years whittling flared in her eyes for a moment. Distrust and rage. How easy it was to stoke those two emotions that always seemed to be simmering just beneath the surface of her meager self-control.

“How did yo--?” she stammered. “I  _ told _ you that I don’t appreci---”

Palpatine raised his hand. “I’ve known you since you were five years old, dear child. I don’t need to look into your mind or use the force to know you’re upset about something. It’s written all over your face.” He let her stew for a moment, watching her chew her lip and then played the guilt card. “Did you not like the celebration tonight?” 

“What?” Rey blinked up at him. 

So her thoughts  _ were _ elsewhere. 

“I am so dreadfully sorry my dear,” Palpatine couldn’t resist a small smile as he ducked his head in feigned remorse. “I know it wasn’t what you deserved. We just had the grandest of celebrations on Naboo when a girl reached her twentieth birthday -- and with us being here I...I just wanted to give you something from what  _ should _ have been your homeworld. Your heritage.” 

“No!” Rey shook her head profusely. “No grandfather, I swear that wasn’t it. The celebration was lovely. Really -- I promise.”

“Then what is it? Please, let me help. You're my only granddaughter,” Palpatine reached across the small table and latched onto her arm, not missing the way she barely suppressed a flinch at his touch.  _ A course that must be altered.  _

Rey shattered for him, shards of her jagged emotions splintering the chill of the Force around them.

“What did you do?” Rey locked eyes with him, but she was as fragile as a flower, trembling in his hands. “When I was dueling the boy. You did something. I  _ felt _ it. He collapsed because of it. What did you  _ do _ ?” 

It wasn’t possible. She couldn’t have pieced it together. Palpatine resisted the urge to growl and backhand her for the audacity to question him. Instead, he slowly withdrew his hands and sighed like the weary grandfather the moment required. He needed to turn her doubt away from him, focus it elsewhere for her to burrow into with that insufferable persistence. 

“He would have killed you. You weren't ready for that kind of a challenge,” he said. “As my granddaughter, I didn’t want to have to tell you that. But as my apprentice, you must know.” 

Rey looked for a moment like she wanted to argue but he felt the defeat waft off her, leaving her deflated. But she immediately swelled back up again with righteous indignation. Bait swallowed whole. 

“Then  _ why  _ is he here grandfather? Why bring a  _ Skywalker  _ here?” She shoved herself up from her chair and began to pace in front of the settee. “They are the reason we are stuck on this desolate rock of a planet. The reason we have to live like vermin, hidden in the most dangerous part of the galaxy. The reason we have to fight to reclaim what was our home.” 

“And that _boy_ ,” she growled, shoving his plush 300-year-old armchair back a few feet as she continued stalking around the room. “That _boy_ _dared_ to come here and challenge me?” She spared a look in Palpatine’s direction but kept aggressively rearranging his sitting room. “Challenge us? The might of the Sith Empire? I should crush him into dust. With my bare hands. Not the Force. Too good for that kriffing _Skywalker._ ”

Her anger, her embarrassment, her swirling mess of emotions was an inferno. A beautiful, dangerous pillar of wrath nearly obsidian in the dark energy of the Force that clung to her. But wildfires were only a useful tool when tamed and directed with extreme precision. 

“His grandfather was my best student -- until you of course -- and a dear friend,” Palpatine said calmly when Rey was finished and huffing in the center of the room. 

“That burnt husk was more robot than man and he nearly killed you.” 

“Like I said, a dear friend,” Palpatine attempted to humor. “I knew the boy he was before he sought freedom in the dark after a lifetime of chains in the old Republic and as a Jedi.” 

He had been waiting a long time to tell this tale to Rey. “The only reason he turned against me was because the Jedi stole his son and daughter the moment they were born. I tried, of course, to reunite the two when he discovered the truth about his boy -- but it was too late. The Jedi turned his son against him and Vader was forced to choose: me or his son.” 

“He chose his son?” Rey’s voice was soft, and Palpatine found his opening.

“Yes. And how can I disparage him that? Especially when that chain of events led to you -- the key to my greatest accomplishment. My entire lifeforce,” Palpatine took Rey’s hands as she rejoined him at the table. “The boy? Ben? He was lied to, just like his grandfather, by the people who raised him. Who he should have been able to trust. I failed Vader once before, so I’ve been trying to bring his grandson to the same freedom he found for years. That’s why he’s here.” 

“But you said he was a 'gift'...for me? Why?” Rey was at least curious now, hooked on the tragic tale of Vader’s folly. “I can’t take him on as an apprentice. I serve you.” 

“One of my old apprentices had a student of their own for many years, I’ll have you know. Taught her the ways of the dark side,” he said. “Count Dooku and, ah what was her name...Ventrei? Ventros? Ventress! Yes, yes, that was it. Asajj Ventress.” 

“Count Dooku also tried to kill you. And replace you.  _ With _ the help of his apprentice. Who you then ordered him to kill,” Rey pointed out, crossing her arms. “Doesn’t seem like the most secure system.” 

“Ah, but we’re family my dear, dear girl,” Palpatine grabbed her hand once more, unable to detect any flinch this time. “You could never betray me.” 

Rey kept his gaze, “Never.” 

They sat in silence for a beat before Palpatine sent her off back to her chambers, satisfied with the progress he was able to make tonight. As soon as Rey left and the heavy stone door ground to a close behind her, Silya materialized from the shadows. 

“It is done milord,” she bowed. “The boy’s cell has been unlocked and he’s ventured out. I’ve ensured any route he attempts to take will lead him to the one I know she always goes down on nights like this.” 

Palpatine sipped his tea. “Excellent. Now make sure those Knights are ready to complete the job we so generously paid them for.” 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cardo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: This chapter contains the brief scene of attempted assault referenced in the tags.   
> To clarify: it is a physical beating, but it is *not* a sexual assault. And while there is some suggestive dialogue/dynamic, I don't think the scene carries any undertone of it. 
> 
> If you want to read the chapter but have concerns and want to skip this particular part, the violence will start after the line: 
> 
> “I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” the man’s smile vanished with a snap of his fingers.
> 
> and conclude after:
> 
> “Ap’lek!” A voice, as low and powerful as the thunder that rumbled beneath her body, came from down the hall. 
> 
> If you're skipping this section, I'll include a TLDR in the chapter notes at the end.

Rey pulled the hood of her cloak low over her eyes. Golden lace and a blood-red crystalline circlet made it impossible to blend in, but she had long perfected her withering stare. Throngs of people still milled about on this floor where they didn’t belong but she cut through them, like an unyielding glacier. 

Cold. Cutting. Willing to crush someone underfoot without an inkling of feeling. 

The acolytes knew their place, parting for her with ease. None dared to even peak at the toes of her boots, shining as they were in the dim orange light Palpatine preferred in the royal hall. They shivered as she passed by, the turbulence of her emotions washing over them and their delicate force-sensibilities. 

They could never touch the force like she could, hard as they might study in the shadow arts, but they could absolutely pick up on the control she was rapidly losing with every step away from her grandfather’s study. 

But the courtiers, as always, were oblivious. Dancing and prancing in their finery on the periphery of her vision. The vapid fools. Too drunk and jingling with core world money in their pockets to register how dangerously closely the princess they were raising their goblets to was considering slicing through the lot of them. 

_ Pitiful. _

Uncertain whether she was describing herself or the crowds, Rey lengthened her stride. She needed quiet, solitude, and probably several glasses of the whiskey she was stashing under her bed. 

But, of course, the entire cosmos had conspired to cloud her lifeday with a thousand irritants and Rey found herself barreling down what she  _ thought _ was a blissfully empty hall when none other than Grand Admiral Vash came tumbling out of chambers he did not live in and into her path. Completely unkempt. 

She gaped at the mustached man as he chortled and tugged his outer vestment back on haphazardly. He was too busy sneaking a furtive glance behind his shoulder to notice her; but Rey, on the other hand, was desperately weighing whether the alchemist's drought would be more effective of wiping this from her mind than diving headfirst into one of the mysterious vats with floating body parts. 

“Well, isn’t this a surprise,” the cool, steady voice that greeted her could only belong to one person. And Rey realized in that moment there were worse things than a mostly naked Admiral Vash. 

A tall Mirialan stretched out against the steel chamber door, now securely closed behind her. Unlike Vash, she was pristine. Her sleek black jumpsuit, with its high neck and sheer sleeves, was completely unwrinkled. And every single strand of her raven hair was slicked back, jutting out an inch below her ears. Twelve tiny diamonds were tattooed across her cheeks in two perfectly symmetrical upsidedown pyramids.

“Keto Ofaylia,” Rey drew herself to full height. “Surprise is right. Already wrangled all the secrets out of those turncoats in the New Republic? Oh! Or have you gotten us any recruits that aren’t complete ignoramuses?" 

Rey gestured to the assortment of weapons -- blasters, knives, nunchucks -- that hung easily off the belt slung across Keto’s hips and the plasma bayonet strapped to her back. "My, aren’t you just as impressive as your new toys.” 

Keto chuckled, an easy, unperturbed giggle. “It seems the biggest secrets are still bound to be found here.  _ Shocking,  _ right? The galaxy has been buzzing about Senator Organa’s missing kid for months now. And all of a sudden he shows up as a lifeday present for you.” Rey felt Keto’s violet eyes scan down her body. “Too bad you haven’t been able to enjoy the  _ perks _ yet.” 

“Pssh, that boy isn’t so tough!” Vash piped up from behind Keto, having finally sorted himself out somewhat. “Threw him in one of the lower-level cells without so much as a scratch. Still out cold from that little tussle he had with you,  princess _. _ ” 

“Your welcome for making your job remotely possible Admiral.” Rey eyed the messy knot of non-regulation fabric twisted around Vash’s neck, the same tender spot she had at her mercy just hours earlier. “And can I just say,  _ nice scarf _ .” 

Vash flushed beet red, blubbering some sort of convoluted comeback as his mustache twitched. But Rey was ready. Every snarky remark, every simmer of emotion she suppressed for the last hour itched at her palms. She already choked the pompous fool once today, she'd be more than happy to do it again. With her bare hands this time. 

But Keto, lax as ever, stepped between the two sparking flares, dousing them with her aloofness. She slipped her arm in the crook of Rey’s without a hint of hesitation and began to tug the princess further down the hall. 

“Well, Admiral I must thank you for being  _ such  _ an engaging host,” Keto called over her shoulder as they began to pull away. “But I would absolutely be remiss if I didn’t take the time to escort Princess Rey and personally deliver my present to her. Farewell!”

“Oh admiral!” Rey couldn’t resist it. “Make sure to have the report on that space station ready for my review at the council meeting next week. I know how  _ keen _ you were on the idea for it.” 

“Do you have a death wish or something?” Keto hissed as soon as they rounded a corner and Vash was out of earshot. “That is the second most murderous man on the entire planet.”

“But the most aggravating.” Rey kept her gait even, her eyes straight, but the curiosity was just blazing inside. “I know you’ve been bouncing around the core worlds for what, ten cycles now--”

“9 and a third.” 

“But  _ surely  _ the pickings can’t be so slim that  _ Grand Admiral Vash _ is a viable option.” 

Keto waved Rey’s aghast concern off lazily, but there was a moment, just a moment, where the light features on her face drew tight and her airy voice grew heavy, “It was a military matter.”

Rey stopped dead in her tracks. 

“And do you want to share that information?” 

“No.” 

“Let me remind you, Keto, since you’ve clearly forgotten in your time off-world,” Rey stepped in, crowding the mirialan that stood a head taller than her. “I am no figurehead. I discuss  _ military matters _ with the Admiral on a daily basis. Whatever you think was important enough to return and tell him in some broom closet is certainly my prerogative. I sit at the head of the war council. I look over the fleet. I send your assignments.”

“But do you sit on the throne?” Keto lowered her voice considerably. “You are not Empress,  _ yet, _ milady.” 

Rey reeled back just the slightest, scanning their surroundings rapidly. They were alone, in a dark offshoot of the main hall, just a few steps away from the Corridor of Conquerors with its rumbling force energy enough to frustrate any eavesdroppers. But still, such  _ treason  _ was reserved for daydreams or pointed looks over a glass of wine -- not words actually spoken aloud. 

An intelligencer for the Eternal Empire, Keto had risen as high as any acolyte could. Nearly as fast and with as much ease as Rey did. But Rey, a true heir, had no limits to her potential or ambition; save for the freedom Keto found as the Emperor’s favorite kind of weapon. One that spied on traitors from the imperial era, sold secrets to undermine the New Republic, traveled across the galaxy as a lifeline for the hermits on Exegol. 

_ What game is she playing? _

Keto didn’t flinch, but held her gaze for a moment longer -- before chuckling softly, “My apologies princess. I didn’t mean to rile you up, truly. My main concern right now is those damn Knights of Ren your grandfather allowed to breach our walls.”

Rey allowed the backstep, seeing a curious opening for a much more immediate curiosity. “The men that delivered the Skywalker boy? Why would you care about them?”

“The first lesson you learn off-world, milady: Never trust a pretty face with a dodgy reputation,” Keto smirked. “I’m sure it’ll be fine. I just wanted Vash to be on the lookout and help me make sure their ship left the atmosphere before we let our guard down.”

“Just keep your wits about you,” she added before slipping out into the main hall and trotting back the way they came. 

Rey sighed and rubbed at her temples as she turned to enter the Corridor of Conquerors. 

It was a morbid area of the Sith underworld, one of the lowest levels and untouched by the Eternal cultists that came when her grandfather took the throne. Dozens of gargantuan Darth statues lined the walkway, lit sporadically by the flashes of blue lightning streaking across the jagged cracks left open by ancient excavations. Nearly everyone on Exegol whispered about this place — claiming the souls of sith lords past were trapped in the statues, and that's why the stone eyes seemed to track anyone that dared to walk here. 

But, growing up on Jakku, Rey was used to barren space abandoned by the living. And found the corridor to be the perfect place to wrestle with her most tangled problems away from the prying eyes of the Imperial court.

What was Keto  _ doing _ with Vash? Why whisper conspiracies? Who else was she meeting in secret with? How far into the ranks did this stretch? 

But somehow the very real threat of a coup  _ wasn’t  _ her biggest concern at the moment. No, here she was practically canting down this morbid corridor, with her thoughts straying to the boy locked in a cell not far from here. 

For the past 15 years, Rey has been on this corpse of a planet, studying — admittedly not very closely — this legacy she was born into. Dreaming of her destiny to change it. To mold it.

That had always involved the Skywalkers. In her mind, they were living blissfully in some pearly palace in the center of the galaxy, dressed in finery, not a care in the world. She was supposed to be the one to snuff them out, to scrub the scars they left in the old wars. To retake the home they stole from her family.

But then...her grandfather told her that story.

And the evil, spoiled, soulless Skywalkers became that boy —  _ Ben  _ — with the dark eyes and wild air about him. He stirred something in her, several somethings actually, and for the first time in a long time Rey felt chaotic. 

_ Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength.  _

But was it still strength if she couldn’t understand it? Was it still a weapon if she didn’t know what she was wielding? 

Rey stopped short, breathing rapidly — her emotions searing against her chest as they raged unkempt. 

She looked up at the Sith peering down at her, the largest statue in the entire hall, Darth Bane. Rey focused on it, glaring up at him, reigning in her fire on a familiar target. The First Lord of the Order. The Great Sith’ari. 

And a damn fool. 

_ Through Victory, my chains are broken.  _

“Evening your highness.”

Being spooked was rare for her -- it wasn't often someone on Exegol had the misfortune of sneaking up on the Emperor’s apprentice -- and she had trained herself a long time to never show a flicker of fear. But when one of those strange knights appeared from out behind Bane’s statue, even Rey took a step back. 

But she recovered quickly, throwing her hood off with a flick of her head and drawing herself up to her full height, “Ah, I didn’t realize the entertainment stuck around for so long after a party.” 

A rumble of blue lightning illuminated him. The man chuckled darkly, and Rey recognized him the one who offered the Skywalker boy as a gift to the throne. He had taken off his marred black mask, tucking it loosely against his right hip, revealing chiseled cheekbones, dark auburn scruff across a strong square jaw, and an eye patch. 

“Is that supposed to be the sharp tongue I’ve heard so much about?” Rey refused to react, even as she watched his one beady eye flick down to her lips, steeling her face into an impassive mask. “Look, I was just hoping you could help me out with an -- how should I put this --  _ exchange  _ my friends and I were hoping to make.” 

“Do I look like the bursar to you?” 

“No, you’re much more useful for what we have in mind.” He took a step closer, his grin distorted in the flickering blue light. 

Rey knew where this exchange was headed, how he was trying to get the leverage in this little back and forth. She needed to gain control of the situation, remind this vagabond who he was dealing with. So she shifted her weight, casually leaning back on her left hip, letting the slit in her dress hang open and expose the dormant saber she had strapped to her thigh. 

But the man only grinned wider, his eye glinting in victory -- and realized with a pit in her gut that she had miscalculated. 

“See, we’re in need of a very specific type of material -- kyber to be exact,” he gestured to her saber. “We’ve been all over the galaxy looking for it, but it's not like we can just go on up to the jedi or the republic and ask if they have any lying around. But we figured you fine folks ought to have an idea.” 

“We don’t keep any kyber here,” Her answer was blunt and true. There wasn’t any reason to dangle deceptions with this leech. Rey  _ knew _ exactly how dangerous that material was and the last thing the people here needed was a bunch of trigger happy treasure hunters. 

“Not even to power that fleet of star destroyers?”

He should not have known about that. There was no way he could have known about that. Keto was right, Rey realized, the longer the knights were here the more they were risking. Her grandfather made a mistake bringing them here, a mistake Rey needed to undo and fast. 

“Look,” Rey let her pretense drop, impassive features morphing into a scowl as she grabbed her saber and ignited both ends, dousing them in a pool of crimson light. “I already told you, we don’t have what you’re looking for. It’s just not here. Do you think we’d be stupid enough to keep something that valuable in just one place?”

“But you  _ do  _ know where it is,” he peered at her, his grin never faltering. 

“What about this situation makes you think I’d share that information?” she growled. “If you don’t want you and your men to be eviscerated before you even make it to the surface, I suggest you leave.  _ Now _ . And maybe the throne will forgive your arrogance.” 

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” the man’s smile vanished with a snap of his fingers. 

It all happened in a clap of lighting -- blue light blinded her from every direction. Rumbles of thunder muffled the sound of heavy footsteps rushing to close in. Three sharp jabs to her back threw her off balance. Her saber flew out of her grip. Her wrists were wrenched behind her back. Heavy binders locked around them, pinching at her skin. 

Rey swayed on her feet, disoriented beyond the mad rush around her. Her head was fuzzy, and her vision was blurred around the edges. Her entire body felt compressed under her skin, like she was shoved into an airlock without any pressurization. 

“Wha--what did you do to me?” Her words came out slurred. 

“Special binders for folks like you. Cardo here designed them to make sure none of our prisoners could touch the shadow.” Rey blinked slowly as she realized the knight wasn’t alone anymore, joined now by his helmet-clad cronies. “Can’t risk special cargo getting away from us.” 

He leaned down to her eye level and gripped her chin hard in his calloused hand. “You’re ours now, princess. And if you’re a good girl and help us get what we need, maybe we won’t leave you stranded on a hunk of abandoned space rock.” 

_ Like hell I will. _

And, through the haze, Rey ducked her chin and bit down on his thumb --  _ hard.  _

He ripped his finger out of her mouth with a sharp hiss and cracked her against the side of her face with the back of his other hand. She fell with the blow, cutting her cheek against the jagged stone floor. Through the roar of blood pounding in her ears, she could make out a simple order. 

_ “Teach her a lesson boys _ .” 

The blows were as blinding as the lighting that flickered in the dark, and as just as chaotic. Heavy boots dug into her back, her stomach as she instinctively curled in on herself. But there was no quarter given. She was hauled up onto her knees, her shoulder nearly popping out of its socket in the process, only to have the wind knocked out her chest when another knight buried his fist into her diaphragm. The savages weren’t restricting themselves to their bare hands; her skin stung as plasma-edged knives sliced off her armbands, blood trickling down her limbs. 

Rey tried to keep her composure as best she could - swallowing the whimpers that bubbled up in her throat, pushing herself back up to her knees when the blows knocked her to the ground, refusing to let a single tear spill down her reddened cheeks. She let the strikes wash over her, clinging to any bit of pain that would keep her from succumbing to the fog hazing her mind, vowing vengeance with every hit. 

It wasn’t until one of the brutes lifted her like a rag doll and threw her against the base of Bane’s statue that something inside her cracked. A scream ripped through her -- she  _ felt  _ it in her chest -- but it was distorted in her ears, like it was light-years away. She fell in a boneless heap on the ground, the taste of tears and blood bitter on her tongue.

_ I will kill each and every one of you.  _ It was a litany in Rey’s mind, winding around the throbbing pain her body. 

“Had enough?” the knight left her on the ground, a small mercy, but forced her head upwards with a tight grip on her bottom bun. “Face it princess -- you’re out of your league here. We’re going to take you off this planet and that will be the end of it. You think because you wear some shiny piece of metal on your forehead anyone will dare to come after you?” He leaned in and whispered into her ear. “Do you think you’re worth risking  _ all  _ of this? You know what will happen if the Republic finds out about this place. You know it’ll be your fault.” 

There were no words, no defiant comeback she could muster now. She had sat in on enough war meetings to know when the battle was lost; hell, she had personally devised First Order strategies to do just that -- corner opponents into their own downfall. It was checkmate. 

“Ap’lek!” A voice, as low and powerful as the thunder that rumbled beneath her body, came from down the hall. 

Her vision was still blurred, but from the darkness emerged the broad silhouette of the Skywalker boy. He was stripped of the leather jacket she fought in him, his sweater loose around his massive frame. His dark hair, tangled and sweaty, hung low over his furrowed brow. He loomed over the pair of them now -- fists clenched and shoulders back -- looking absolutely lethal. 

“Kylo!” the man -- Ap’lek -- dropped her unceremoniously to the ground. “Perfect! You fou--”

“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t kill you right here and right now.” 

Ap’lek’s didn’t miss a beat. “Come on Kylo! This was all part of the plan. Did you  _ really  _ think we’d leave you like that. Here? After, you know, everything?” 

There it was again. Rey watched through heavy lids, as the Skywalker boy’s face reflected a rapid volley of emotions. She felt it numbly somewhere at the base of her skull. 

“Yes,” he ground out, finally. “Yes, I think that was  _ exactly _ the plan. But now I’m here. I’m alive. And you’re trying to figure out a way to save your ass.”

“But  _ look _ what we have now,” Ap’lek gestured to Rey, pulling closer to the boy he turned over. “Come with us. Now. Let’s get out of here while we still can.”

_ Was this it? Would he stick with the men who betrayed him? Save his own skin? Damn her?  _ Rey tried to muster up the strength to glare up at him. She channeled as much ferocity as she could to mask the helplessness that stung her eyes as she watched him just stare at her. Impassive and unreadable.  _ Jedi scum. Skywalker trash.  _

Then, in a flash of what could only be described as utter roguishness, the Skywalker boy punched his knight square in the face. 

Ap’lek crumpled to the ground -- out cold -- and blocked Rey’s blurry view of whatever was unfolding behind him. From the distorted echoes ringing in her ears, she guessed the other knights jumped to subdue the rebel in their midst but couldn’t make out from the fray -- crunching bones and choked gasps -- who had the other hand. But she fought to keep her eyes open, pulling against the heaviness in her own bones -- a flicker of hope mixing with the inky black frustration in her chest. 

It was over sooner than she expected. Deep, heavy breaths filled the air -- the only clue that someone was approaching, rapidly. And then Rey found large hands -- warm and surprisingly gentle -- helping her sit up, propping her against the base of Bane’s statue. 

“Are you okay?” Ben Solo blinked down at her. He kept one hand supporting her lower back while the other cradled her head -- a gentleness they didn’t have during their duel mere hours ago. “Fucking sadistic bastards.”

Rey gave him her most articulate moan -- telling herself, yes, it’s still dignified in this scenario -- and wiggled her arms, bringing his attention to the damned binders that were, at this point, cutting off circulation. 

Solo was gentle still, folding her slowly against him, letting her head rest in a warm nook between his neck and shoulder. Rey closed her eyes, just for a moment, allowing herself to just enjoy the softness of his sweater and the simple fact that she wasn’t alone right now. He fiddled behind her back for a few moments before the binders came off with a soft click. Feeling rushed back into her body like she had broken through the surface of a frozen lake, gasping for air.

As the Force hummed in her veins, Rey studied her surroundings with a clear head. Ben Solo had pulled back from holding her in his arms and now kneeled at her feet, bruised and bloody. Unconscious bodies were crumpled all around them. Suddenly, Rey understood the power her grandfather wielded; how it tasted for blood to be spilled not just by you, but  _ for _ you.

The air was charged between them as Rey locked eyes with Ben, both silent and breathing heavy. 

“Milady!” Silya was sprinting wildly down the corridor, calling back behind her shoulder. “I found her! Come  _ quickly _ , I found her!” 

“You need to leave -- now,” Rey whispered to Ben. “If you were planning on escaping, you won’t have a chance if the guards find you here.” She pushed lightly against his shoulders, trying not to relish in the static that rushed up her arms. “Hurry! Go down this hall and there’s a hidden staircase thirty feet on your right. It’s the only place that can take you straight up to the upper levels without having to take the public lifts. Once you’re there, I don’t know, steal a scarf or somethi--”

“Why?” He was back to being impassive -- full lips pressed together in a thin line and large brown eyes studying her.

She felt like she was under a microscope; it chafed at her. “I don’t believe in the barter and trade of lifeforms. Under any circumstances.” Something shifted in his face, but Rey knew they were running out of time. “You don’t have to stay here. Go. Take their ship.”

Ben rolled his jaw, folding his arms over his chest with the  _ exact opposite  _ sense of urgency he should be having right now. Rey shoved at him again, harder this time, determined to ignore whatever was fluttering in her chest with his resistance. 

“There’s something different about you. You’re not what I expected,” his voice was deep, but soft -- vulnerable almost. 

_ “Met many Sith have you?”  _ Rey was about to retort, but her grandfather’s red Praetorian guards had found them. 

Four of them pounced on Ben, their armor clanking loudly in the corridor as they pinned him roughly to the ground. Silya fretted at Rey’s side, the poor girl chattering worries and flitting her hands over Rey’s wounds. It was too much. All of it -- Silya’s buzzing, the shouts of the guards, her throbbing head, the ache in her  _ entire  _ body. 

“Get your hands off me,” she growled when one of the guards tried to stop her from clamoring up and over to Ben. “And let him  _ go!” _

“Princess, he escaped his cell,” the guard was faceless, but Rey didn’t detect a single tremor of fear in his voice. “We have to restrain him. Especially given the state we found  _ you  _ in.” 

“You idiots! He didn’t hurt me -- look around! These knights  _ you _ allowed to wander around the halls did.” 

The guard refused to budge, even as his companions began to drag the still-unconscious knights together. Ben was restrained and gagged, already being led down the corridor by one of the knights. 

“Sorry, princess, we have orders.” 

Something ignited within her, not a spark but an entire inferno blazed to life. Searing and chaotic. There were too many emotions churning inside her -- rage, pain, pity, desperation -- but it fueled the flames. It was all so different from her usual precision, the emotional iciness she wielded like a sword, but she felt the power in her veins.

“You have new orders now.” 

And as she curled her hand, slowly, into a fist every single one of her grandfather’s finest guards clawed at their throats, gasping for air. 

She held them there, suspended by her invisible hold on their unseen throats, as the second dragged by. Their panic bled into the Force around her, feeding the lighting underground as it flickered all around them. It was intoxicating. The power. The emotions running through her. She was alive. At no one’s mercy. 

Ben Solo stared at her from where he was dropped on the ground, his eyes wide, and a chill shuddered through her. Anchoring her back down. She released the guards, stunned as the Force calmed around her, like the sea after a tsunami. 

“Ben Solo will not be harmed,” she stood tall over the guards, kneeling in submission, daring any to defy her. But her voice was distant once again, and she was lightheaded. The last thing she saw was the Skywalker boy rushing towards her as her legs crumpled beneath her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scene skip TLDR: Rey is captured by the Knights of Ren. Their "plan" was to take her off Exegol, knowing no one could follow them and risk exposing the empire's base, and force her to help them search for kyber crystals.


End file.
